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Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

nytimes.com

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Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#141

Post by Oletros »

cvburgess wrote: post #61
SquareWheel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple also makes most of it's money by selling phones, not user information... Google is the advertiser. I'm surprised how often people make this mistake. They don't sell user data to other advertisers. This not only goes against their terms of service, but also makes no business sense. Why would they give up their best signal for targeted ads?

They effectively sell user information by way of allowing their customers to target individuals for a price. They aren't directly selling the data itself but they are selling a service that is an extension of that data. I think the semantics are negligible. They make money selling [ads based on] user data.

> They effectively sell user information by way of allowing their customers to target individuals for a price

If you're implying that advertisers can target an specific user, this is false

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#142

Post by epistasis »

dragonwriter wrote: post #134
epistasis wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they pitch up everything under the F/OSS banner Do they really pitch anything under the F/OSS banner? I don't understand why Google has this reputation. Android is OSS, but that's a fairly recent addition, and it's not really played up very much.

> I don't understand why Google has this reputation. Android is OSS, but that's a fairly recent addition, and it's not really played up very much. In addition to AOSP, Chromium (and Chromium OS) are open source; while App Engine isn't, the App Engine SDK is, and Google has supported an open-source reimplementation of App Engine. Dart is open source, as is Go. And a lot of other stuff.

Well I don't think that Google really advertises itself under the OSS banner (and certainly not Libre/Free). And when compared to Apple, as the other poster did, I don't really see that Google is doing much more open source other than Android.

They definitely did advertise themselves with the motto "Do No Evil," which they dropped some time ago, but open source hasn't really been a part of Google's DNA. Google's extensive use of open source software without publishing their modifications is exactly the reason that AGPL was invented.

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#143

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

Oletros wrote: post #136
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google doesn't care. They're the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, and you better not fear advertisers, because we just told them all about you" crowd. Few years back Cornell University adopted Gmail for their staff and faculty under the condition that the company wouldn't data-mine the emails. Google did anyway. Now we use Outlook.

> Google doesn't care. They're the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, and you better not fear advertisers, because we just told them all about you" crowd. Still with that out of context quote?

Did you even read my second paragraph? I have personal experience of their ignoring contractual privacy requirements for private gain.

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#144

Post by Oletros »

eridius wrote: post #133
Oletros wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google makes more money from iOS than they do from Android. Source?

It's been stated in numerous articles over the years. I don't have any source offhand, though a quick DDG search gives me a story from 2012: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/03/29/iphone-4x-revenue-an...

> It's been stated in numerous articles over the years

Then it will be easy to find any source that it is not the same old "Google makes 4 times more from iOS than from Android" that was debunked years ago for using assumptions about a royalty figure in the Oracle vs. Google trial and nothing real

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#145

Post by jsprogrammer »

grillvogel wrote: post #139
jsprogrammer wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like many people don't get the concept of evidence preservation. Apple put in a feature, which they may circumvent, that will effectively brick the device if it is tampered in certain ways. The lowest risk option for retrieving the data is to get the people who designed the device to implement their circumvention method. That is exactly what the FBI asked for and what the judge agreed to. Why should the FBI…

>Why should the FBI have to waste resources reverse engineering Apple's product (and risk destruction of evidence) when Apple is wholly capable of helping out? so now apple has to pay for engineers to design and implement this change to their product because the government said so? why is apple required to "help out"?

Apple is currently required because there is an outstanding court order. I'm not sure if they have submitted a formal appeal.

I do think there are some interesting questions about "forced work" here, but that can be said of any subpoena, and I don't think many would contest the entire concept.

From my standpoint: Apple can prove critical in obtaining whatever evidence/information may be on the device. It may certainly be the case that there is nothing valuable there, but such events should be thoroughly investigated. This was a personal computing device of a person who killed many, we need to know what is on it, and we can. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple were already working on the software.

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#146

Post by Oletros »

eridius wrote: post #138
dragonwriter wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google makes more money from iOS than they do from Android. I think that statement's based on an old stat that, at that time, Google's revenue from licensing (Apple was paying for Maps) and advertising (including web and search advertising, and at the time Google was the default search provider on iOS and this was also before Siri was around to displace some web search) to iOS users was greater than its revenue fro…

Fair enough, it's certainly possible that the stat is no longer true. Unless they've talked about it recently, it's hard to know for sure. Here's an article from May of 2015 that says that 75% of Google's mobile search revenue comes from iOS, which probably hasn't changed too dramatically since then, but it may no longer be accurate: http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/27/apples-ios-drives-...

> Here's an article from May of 2015 that says that 75% of Google's mobile search revenue comes from iOS,

Ah, the other figure from a report from Goldman Sachs that nobody has seen but it is now dogma.

When you find the report, please, put it.

And, by the way, using Appleinsider as source is very funny

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#148

Post by Oletros »

epistasis wrote: post #142
dragonwriter wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why Google has this reputation. Android is OSS, but that's a fairly recent addition, and it's not really played up very much. In addition to AOSP, Chromium (and Chromium OS) are open source; while App Engine isn't, the App Engine SDK is, and Google has supported an open-source reimplementation of App Engine. Dart is open source, as is Go. And a lot of other stuff.

Well I don't think that Google really advertises itself under the OSS banner (and certainly not Libre/Free). And when compared to Apple, as the other poster did, I don't really see that Google is doing much more open source other than Android. They definitely did advertise themselves with the motto "Do No Evil," which they dropped some time ago, but open source hasn't really been a part of Google's DNA. Google's exte…

> They definitely did advertise themselves with the motto "Do No Evil," which they dropped some time ago,

Google has not dropped that motto

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#149

Post by oldmanjay »

mcphage wrote: post #34
vbezhenar wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't sound as a freedom of speech but more as oppressive government. Something wrong if people don't want to express their opinions because of fear.

> Something wrong if people don't want to express their opinions because of fear. Not people—companies.

Companies are groups of people. Trying to disparage them as some force outside humanity is great for getting laid in college, but it's not an accurate reflection of what is really happening, so it's not a helpful attitude when addressing problems.

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#150

Post by genkaos »

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #140
mentat wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people who think about this stuff often seem to think that TAO already has access and the only purpose is to create a precedent to use this legal process against anyone.

What is TAO?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailored_Access_Operations
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